Heartless: A Small Town Single Dad Romance

Summer: She’s going to be great. You’re going to love her.

Cade: No. I’m not. I’m going to tolerate her.

Summer: Po-tay-to, po-tah-to! Just be nice.

Cade: I am nice.

Summer: No. You’re kind of an asshole.

Cade: With family like you telling me things like this, I just can’t imagine why.

Summer: Don’t worry though. It’s part of your charm.

Cade: I’m a charming asshole?

Summer: Exactly!

I wish I could pretend I’m not standing on the front porch waiting for her. But I am.

She grates on my nerves, sure. But my kid seems to like her and I’m still a gentleman at my core.

I pull my cell phone out of my back pocket and check the time. My countdown is on. She seems like the type of person who would be late. Scattered. Disorganized.

Or maybe I just want her to be so I can be justified in not liking her. If she’s late the first time we make an agreement, I’ll be able to show everyone that I was right. That she isn’t responsible enough to take care of Luke.

Truthfully, I don’t know who is. I don’t trust easily. Especially not women.

She has six minutes.

I smile to myself, prop a hip against the banister, feeling like there’s a good chance I’ll be right.

And it’s at that moment the crunching of gravel draws my gaze up.

It’s at that moment I’m proven wrong.

Because Willa’s red Jeep is rolling down my driveway five minutes early.

She pulls right up beside my black truck and hops out. I stare at her feet, starting at her Converse sneakers, letting my eyes trail up long, slender legs to simple denim cutoffs topped with an oversized, distressed Led Zeppelin shirt. There’s a hole in it near her stomach, and I can see a little peek of milky skin through it.

Big Ray-Ban aviators sit on her nose, and her coppery hair is wild and wavy around her shoulders. It frames her delicate face like dancing flames. A wisp of it blows across her lips.

The lips that are all glossy and tipped up in a smirk.

“You’re early,” I growl, because I don’t know what else to say. I can’t peel my eyes off of her, even though I want to. Even though she’s not at all my type at this point in my life.

She has city girl written all over her. She has wild child written all over her. She’s not some sweet, small-town girl.

She’s the girl who told me she’d be ready for me to inspect her undergarments and didn’t think twice about it.

She has temptation written all over her.

But she doesn’t act like it, instead she shrugs and pulls her sunglasses off her face, pinning me with her emerald eyes. The kind of eyes that stop you in your tracks.

If nothing else, Willa Grant is a stunner.

Too young for me. Too unpredictable for me.

But a stunner all the same.

“I was excited to get out here.”

I blink at her because, well, what am I supposed to say to that? I’m here counting all the ways in which she’s a problem for me, and she’s just excited to be here and take care of my child.

Maybe I am the asshole everyone tells me I am.

“Willa!” Luke comes tearing out of the house like a bat out of hell, socked feet straight down the dirt path and onto the gravel driveway. He knows better but hasn’t stopped talking about Willa since she left yesterday. Poor kid is so starved for female attention that all someone needs to do is climb a tree with him and he has them up on a pedestal.

He comes to a screeching halt in front of her. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

Willa laughs, all pretty and sexy, with a little rasp—like she smokes or something. And I’m wondering if she does. I didn’t ask her if she smokes.

She crouches in front of him and ruffles his soft hair. “I’m so glad to be here. We’re going to have the best summer.”

“What are we going to do?” His eyes go all sparkly, excitement pouring off him.

“Everything,” she replies, waving a hand in a wide arc. “All the things.”

My brows furrow from their own fruition. I want Luke to have fun, but not too much fun.

She reads my expression because her eyes twinkle with amusement. “Cliff diving. Bull riding. I’ll even teach you how to shotgun a beer.”

I shake my head at her as my lips flatten, already seeing my peaceful summer swirling down the drain.

She’s going to drive me up the fucking wall.

Luke’s nose wrinkles. “Beer is gross.”

She just laughs again. “Smart answer, kid. I’m just joking. But I have lots of fun ideas. Help me get my suitcase inside?”

“Of course!” my son’s sugary voice exclaims as he slides his hand into hers without hesitation.

I groan and stride down the stairs, covering the ground quickly to reach the back of her Jeep at the same time they do. Holding a hand up to stop them, I grumble, “I’ve got this.”

“Very chivalrous. Thank you, Mr. Eaton.”

I bite down on the inside of my cheek. Mr. Eaton. That makes me feel like an old perv.

Or like my dad. Which is possibly the same thing.

But I don’t correct her, because the old perv part of me likes it. Instead, I open the back hatch and pull out her massive suitcase.

“I want to show you my room!” Luke says, like an excited squirrel with a nut that can’t figure out where to put it.

It’s honestly kind of endearing.

I heave the suitcase out just in time to watch them walk hand in hand into my house, and for some reason, I stop and watch. Unable to look away. Lots of people have walked through that front door.

But somehow this feels different.

“In bed by eight.”

Willa nods, face perfectly serious even though I’m pretty sure there’s a part of her that’s mocking me. “Okay.”

We’re sitting across from each other at the white oval table in my living room, facing off now that Luke is asleep for the night. Willa has crossed her forearms over each other, and I’m still trying to steal glimpses of her skin through the hole in her T-shirt.

“No sugar after dinner.”

She rears back, eyes widening. “Not even dessert?” She sounds like I’ve just told her I kick puppies or something.

“Not on weeknights.”

“You rule with an iron fist, Daddy Eaton.”

I groan, cheeks pinching up in distaste. “That’s what we call my dad.”

A silent puff of air slips from her lips, the bottom one more full than the top. “Daddy Cade it is.”

I’m not sure what I did to deserve this torture, but it must be something terrible. I like to think I’ve lived a straight and narrow sort of life, yet I’ve been handed heartache after heartache, challenge after challenge. It seems like the universe could have granted some sort of reprieve.

But it granted me Willa fucking Grant.

“No.”

She smirks and tilts her head in challenge.

“You’ll send me text message updates throughout the day so that I don’t worry. Keep me apprised of your activities.”

“Is this something his teachers do for you while he’s at school?”

I lean back, scanning her up and down. I feel the sneer touch my lips before I can stop it. “No. But I trust them. I like them.”

Willa blinks slowly, staring at me almost blankly. The silence stretches as her stare shifts into what I’m sure is more of a glare.

Maybe it was a dick thing to say, but I’m not known for giving people the warm and fuzzies. Every time I’ve done that, I’ve walked away a little less whole than I started.

Never again.

I’ve got nothing left to give if Luke wants a dad who can be happy and present.

“I know you didn’t just say that to me.”

I lift one shoulder carelessly. “Sure did.”

The smile she gives me is flat, her eyes dull—all traces of playfulness evaporated. “Well, in that case, I’ll be going.”

She scoots her chair away efficiently, pushes to stand, spins on a heel and leaves me sitting at my table, staring at her perfect ass.

“Willa.”

She deposits her glass of water in the sink but ignores me.

“Willa.”

She ignores me and turns to head down the hall toward the guest bedroom where Luke so happily helped her get settled a couple of hours earlier. I could hear him chattering away at her. Asking her about her horse. About her guitar. About what her favorite type of snake was. Like that’s a normal question you ask when getting to know someone.

If I didn’t think it would wake Luke up and upset him, I’d raise my voice right now. But I’m stuck whisper-shouting “Willa” and she’s not fucking listening.

With a growl, I stand and stride after her. Past Luke’s room and right to the door of her bedroom that veers off the long hallway before it would lead to my master bedroom at the very end.

“Willa.” I catch the door just before she can quietly close it. Obviously, she’s trying not to wake my son as well, something I appreciate, because he doesn’t need to be a part of this conversation.

I stand on the hardwood floor of the hallway, and she stands on the carpet in the bedroom. A brass divider shines on the ground between us like a line in the sand. Me versus her.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Leaving,” she deadpans.

“Why?”

Her eyes roll as she turns away from me and starts setting things back into her barely unpacked suitcase. “Because I’m not spending my summer living with a woman hater who doesn’t trust me and will be an over-the-top control freak the entire time I’m here.”

I lurch back a little like she’s slapped me. “I’m not a woman hater.”

She bends over to grab a pair of pink, fluffy slippers. The kind that would melt into plastic in the heat of a fire. I try not to fixate on the way her shorts creep up the smooth skin on her thighs. “You should try harder not to look at me like you hate me, then.”

It’s not the first time people have told me this. But it’s the first time I’ve faced the reality of how it might make them feel. It’s not intentional. I’m pretty sure it’s just my default facial expression now. My smiling muscles have lost all their tone.

“I don’t hate you.”

She rises, a wry laugh twisting her features as her copper waves fly around her neck. “Could have fooled me.”

“I’m sorry.”

Her chin juts out, and she holds up a hand to her ear. “Pardon? I think I misheard that.”

“I’m. Sorry.” I bite out. “I’m having a hard time letting him go.”

I watch her shoulders fall as she hisses out a sigh. “That’s fair. But there’s no amount of money in the world you could pay me to stay here and be your punching bag all summer.”

I fucking love the pair on this girl. If I weren’t so irritated by how attracted I am to her, I’d be cheering her on.

I glance over my shoulder toward Luke’s room, where my entire world is sleeping. The little boy who is excited at the prospect of spending the next couple of months with the firecracker in front of me.

“Stay,” I mutter, holding a hand up to stop her and staring down at that line on the floor. The one stopping me from storming in there and dragging her back out to the table and forcing her to listen to me.

She stops shoving stuff into her bag and turns to face me, crosses her arms beneath her generous breasts and cocks a hip. If attitude were a person, she’d be it.

“Beg.”

“Pardon me?”

“You heard me.” Her lips don’t even twitch. She’s not joking at all. “Beg.”

My cheeks heat against my will. My heart thunders in my chest. She’s got me so on my heels it’s not even funny. I can’t allow it to last. But can I suck it up for the sake of making her turn her ass around?

Maybe.

“Please stay.”

She doesn’t react other than to arch an eyebrow.

“Don’t leave.”

Her lips roll together in the most distracting way.

I sigh, propping my hands on my hips and staring up at the stippled ceiling above me.

“Luke is everything to me, and I want him to have a fun summer. Proper fun. Sometimes he’s stuck out on this ranch with a bunch of adults, and I worry he doesn’t get enough attention from me because I work such long hours. And I need help because it’s all just way too much. I’m fucking exhausted.” My chin drops, and I look her in the eye. “I really need your help. Please stay.”

The column of her throat shifts, and her eyes take on a slightly glassy quality. With a few soft steps, she comes to stand right in front of me. She smells like citrus and vanilla. Like some fancy pastry at the coffee shop in town. I can’t help but lean in just a little bit.

She draws close. It almost feels too close in the dimly lit room. Too intimate in the quiet house. It feels like the kind of moment where you could make a mistake and no one would ever know.

And maybe I already made a mistake tonight, or maybe I’m about to make one. Usually I’m so sure of myself. But in this instance, I’m struggling to tell right from wrong.

“Fine.” She sticks her hand out to me, and I instantly let my palm meet hers. I can feel the dainty bone in her wrist against the pads of my calloused fingers. “I will send you texts. I will keep him mostly sugar free. But if you act like a dick, I’m going to call you out on it.”

“I have no doubt you will, Red.”

We’re still shaking hands. It’s a handshake that has lasted longer than is proper. It’s a threat or a promise—I’m just not sure which.